Category Archives: IT NEWS

Yahoo recruiting iOS developers to ‘radically improve’ Flickr

Yahoo’s Flickr mobile app may be getting a completely new look in the months to come, as the company seeks to hire multiple iOS engineers to “radically improve” the photo-sharing site’s app and attract new users, the company said in a recent job notice.

The company is looking to hire iOS developers for the Flickr mobile engineering team to work on “a tremendously long list of new features, programs and technologies set to come online this year,” Yahoo said in a job posting that went up on the company website April 30.

The position’s responsibilities would include developing iPhone and iPad apps “from scratch,” using data provided by Flickr’s API (application programming interface), Yahoo said. Applicants should possess a “strong visual design sense,” according to the posting.

Over the coming months, Yahoo plans to “improve Flickr, both for new users and casual visitors as well as the power users who form the core of the community,” the company also said.

Yahoo did not provide specifics in the posting on any particular features it was planning.

The company could not be immediately reached to comment on the posting.

The timing of the notice’s posting makes sense for Yahoo, as the company is in the midst of a massive rebuilding effort to win back users and boost revenue, partly through the development of new mobile products.

Previously one of Silicon Valley’s formidable internet companies, in recent years Yahoo has struggled to compete against Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter. Mobile will be a top priority for the company in 2013, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call last month.

In terms of output at least, Yahoo so far is delivering on that promise. In late April, two new mobile apps for email and weather were announced. Then a new version of the Yahoo app itself was released, featuring news summaries made possible through the company’s acquisition of London-based Summly. Just last week, Yahoo bought the to-do app Astrid.

Flickr gained some new functionalities last December, with the addition of a range of new filters that could be applied to photos, as well as editing tools to crop and straighten images and even add text.

The iOS app was last updated in March to allow users to apply hashtags to their photo’s title or description.

But Flickr’s popularity has waned as other photo-sharing apps such as Instagram and Snapchat have attracted users, especially young people and as dedicated social networks such as Facebook and Twitter continue to grow.

Still, the changes Yahoo appears to be prepping for Flickr are needed and Mayer is absolutely right to focus on mobile, said Opus Research analyst Greg Sterling.

“Flickr has been neglected for a long time until recently,” he said. By bringing on more talent to improve the app, possibly from the ground up, Yahoo could be trying to make Flickr a stronger social property for the company, Sterling said, in the way that Instagram is to Facebook.

“Yahoo could be looking at Instagram as a model of where they want to take Flickr,” he said.

Flickr has more than 75 million users, according to Yahoo.

Source: http://www.macworld.com.au/news/yahoo-recruiting-ios-developers-to-radically-improve-flickr-94715/#.UYr8nfbibNQ

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Oracle releases mobile application development framework

Oracle ADF Mobile Release 1.1 is based on the Java and HTML5

Oracle has released Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Mobile which claimed to feature push notification, visual components with support of advance Java-based mobile development framework that supports iOS and Android.

Based on the Java and HTML5, the ADF Mobile is a part of Oracle Fusion Middleware and allows the developers to build, deploy, and extend enterprise applications easily for mobile environment like the iOS and Android from a single code base.

The Oracle ADF Mobile Release 1.1 is claimed to add support for device-native push notification, new device integration infrastructure based on Apache Cordova, full file attachment viewing, updated mobile operating system support, and improve the performance.

Oracle Application Development Tools vice president Chris Tonas said that the Oracle ADF Mobile is a cross-platform application to develop applications for both iOS and Android devices.

"With push notification and the new Cordova infrastructure, Oracle ADF Mobile 1.1 further enhances developer productivity and enables them to cost-effectively deliver mobile applications faster," Tonas added.

Additionally, the application offers JavaScript APIs to support automatic testing of Oracle ADF Mobile applications and features new data visualisation components, right to left language support and application archives support.

Source: http://appdev.cbronline.com/news/oracle-releases-mobile-application-development-framework-060513

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Facebook snaps up Parse to accelerate mobile app development

Facebook + Parse

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has acquired software development platform Parse, signaling the social networking giant’s entry into a new business category: Premium application development tools and services. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but multiple reports indicate the cash-and-stock agreement is valued at about $85 million.

Facebook acquires software development platform Parse.

Founded in 2011, Parse offers support for cloud-based data storage services, identity management and log-in tools, push notifications, social interactions and custom code. Applications leveraging the Parse platform run across operating systems including Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS, Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 8 and JavaScript, as well as Windows 8 and Mac OS X for the desktop.

Parse currently powers more than 60,000 apps, according to TechCrunch. Basic services are free; a Pro version including additional requests and pushes, as well as collaboration, security and marketing tools is priced at $199 per month, and Parse also offers advanced enterprise services at custom annual prices.

Facebook will offer Parse services alongside its existing Facebook Platform APIs and developer tools. "By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices," said Douglas Purdy, Facebook’s director of product management. "Parse makes this possible by allowing developers to work with native objects that provide backend services for data storage, notifications, user management and more. This removes the need to manage servers and a complex infrastructure, so you can simply focus on building great user experiences."

Purdy added that Facebook will continue offering Parse’s products and services. Parse CEO Ilya Sukhar said that Parse apps will not be affected "in any way" and adds that apps are not required to integrate Facebook functionality.

Parse has raised $7 million from investors including Ignition Partners. Sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that in recent months, the startup was raising a financing round that would have valued its business at $50 million. Insiders added that file hosting platform Dropbox also bid for Parse, and that both Google and Yahoo additionally expressed interest in the firm. Spokespeople for Google and Yahoo declined to comment; Dropbox did not respond to a request for comment.

John Connors, a partner at Ignition Partners, told the Journal the deal will allow Facebook to offer a range of "data and services for mobile developers" overnight. Parse "had a lot of potential for creating a really big company–a number of enterprise and telecom companies had been evaluating them very, very closely," Connors added.

Source: http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/facebook-snaps-parse-accelerate-mobile-app-development/2013-04-26

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Choosing Between Quality or the Software Development Deadline

Working on laptop

Your development deadline is approaching, and you know your work won’t be done on time… or at least done well on time. You have two options; deliver poor quality software and meet your deadline, or miss your deadline all together and suffer the consequences. Does this sound familiar?

In most companies today there is massive disconnect between management and development teams around setting and maintaining deadlines. On the one hand management needs the work done fast, and on the other dev teams need to produce quality, which doesn’t exactly happen overnight.

CIO’s Matthew Heusser recently posted “How to Deal With Software Development Pressure” featuring a group of programmers swapping their development “war stories”.  Some of the programmers include Nayan Hajratwala, principal of Chikli Consulting, Matt Barcomb, agile coach and consultant, David Hoppe and Michael Drzewiecki, a project manager from South Bend, Ind. Here’s a look:

“Hajratwala: These people…have been sold so much snake oil that they have no faith in anything coming to them. So they say, “You know what, here’s what I need and here’s when I need it.” The only way to break through that is to actually deliver something.

What we’re saying—that we can have something in production by the end of the week—makes no sense to them. They want to see the three-year plan. Frankly, until we’ve delivered, they have no reason to believe it.

Keller: Some people have the thought that they get the commitment to November in order to get it in May. The false-commitment makes sure they get it at all, and they believe it makes the team work really hard.

Drzewiecki: That’s schedule pressure as a tool—from a belief that if you don’t apply the pressure, the technical team will be lazy. There’s a lot of distrust there.

Kaufman: Sometimes the hidden message is to deliver the crappiest piece of software as soon as possible.

Keller: Team members worry about a death march. A few people just can’t work longer hours for family reasons. The team often figures out [it] can get it done by sacrificing quality.”

While each scenario varies from company to company – sacrificing quality to meet a deadline is more common among development teams than you might think. Bridging the communication gap between business leaders and developers is the first step towards eliminating this problem. Sketchboards, storyboards, flowcharts or wireframes are a few of the ways to facilitate better, more effective communication.

However, most importantly teams need to make quality their top priority.  Under pressure developers chop off certain features, and shorten their time for testing. Releasing a buggy product to consumers puts brands at risk of ruining their reputation. Software has to work, every time.  Extending your QA and testing in real world scenarios can help bring quality back to your applications.

Source: http://blog.utest.com/choosing-between-quality-or-the-software-development-deadline/2013/04/

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How to profitably develop mobile apps

Intel Developer Blog: Softtalkblog looks at how HTML5 can help increase market reach

Every now and then, I open the newspaper to discover another app and its inventor, who are both tipped for the top.

It’s always a joy to see independent developers getting exposure, and it carries that subtle lottery-like subtext: “It could be you!”. Sometimes the stories celebrate the mere creation of an app, but other times they report on an app that’s seen huge financial success. Who wouldn’t want a slice of that?

Obviously, there’s no golden formula to coming up with an app idea that resonates with everyone, but there are some ways you can maximise your profits, which is ultimately what counts. Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity, as the old saying goes.

It doesn’t matter how much money you bring in: it only matters how much is left at the end of the month, and that depends on how tightly you can control costs.

For most developers, whether working in an agency or self-employed, time is their biggest expense or opportunity cost. A lot of work goes in to creating an app, but that can be considered an investment, and can be recouped as the app is tweaked for use on different platforms.

There remains the cross-platform conundrum, the challenge of how you can profitably serve a market that remains fragmented across operating systems and devices. We can’t do much about the fragmentation, but we can do a lot about how we respond to it.

Software can only be sold to people who have compatible hardware, so one way to dramatically increase your market reach is to increase the number of devices your app runs on, and HTML5 can be a big help in this regard. It runs on almost any modern personal computing device, and with minor modifications and a browser wrapper, HTML5 apps can be put into app stores relatively easily.

HTML5 can help with tomorrow’s challenges too. When a new device or operating system comes to market, it represents a gamble for app developers. As it takes off, though, those who showed faith and migrated to the platform early are rewarded with huge sales.

We’ve seen it time and again on new platforms over the last five years or more. We don’t know what the next big platform will be, but we do know that anyone who has app code in HTML5 is likely to be in a stronger position to port it across, than someone who is locked in to code that is native to a particular device.

If you have code that’s currently written in Objective-C for iOS, you can migrate it to HTML5 for use on Android, Windows and other platforms using the free Intel HTML5 App Porter Tool Beta. It automates the conversion as far as possible, so you can focus on those aspects of your app that are more unique.

When creating new apps, developers should think about future-proofing their code from the start, and plan for an app to ultimately go across multiple platforms, including perhaps some that don’t yet exist.

It is possible to port apps by rewriting them, but it’s a slow process and most developers would rather not write the same app over and over again. Having HTML5 as a base at least means that there is a core that can be ported across relatively easily, even if some custom coding is required around the edges.

HTML5 helps you make more money in two ways: it opens up new markets, and it speeds up your cross-platform app development. It’s not ideal for every kind of application, but where it is a good fit, it should be the top choice for any developer that’s serious about making money. Find out more about HTML5 at the Intel Developer Zone.

Source: http://www.develop-online.net/news/43561/How-to-profitably-develop-mobile-apps

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6 software and driver update utilities compared

The update situation in Windows is dire: Other than a few drivers and built-in Microsoft-only programs, there isn’t a whole lot that Windows Update actually keeps “up to date.” As a result, users are subject to all the reliability, performance and security issues associated with aging drivers and applications.

That’s where software and driver update tools come in. These utilities promise to keep your Windows PC, laptop or tablet up-to-date — automatically.

We tested four software update utilities and two driver update utilities and rated them on update detection and ease-of-use.

None of the products was perfect, but in our testing, UpdateStar Premium Edition and UpdateStar Drivers came out on top because of their massive database and well-structured user interface.

Software updating is a messUnless you’re part of a big enterprise infrastructure with PC lifecycle and patch management solutions, third-party software and driver updates are a messy business. Here’s why:

A lot of the larger software developers, such as Adobe, Google, Microsoft, etc. install their own update mechanisms along with their software. They’re either being run as startup items, background services or scheduled tasks.

And the number of background updaters grows with the number of programs installed. (According to UpdateStar, their average user runs 80 applications.) So you can expect to eventually be dealing with A LOT of updaters, each of which runs on its own schedule.

Despite keeping my system squeaky clean, I’m getting at least one notice per week. That’s happening either when I’m working (ugh, those annoying balloon-tips) or when I launch an application that’s not up-to-date.

While there’s not much of a performance hit, the more updaters you’ve got pinging your hardware, the less you’ll get out of your laptop’s (or tablet’s) battery.

And to make matters worse, these updaters aren’t even particularly reliable. While it’s certainly a good intention of some update tools to not constantly check for (and download) updates, this also means an increased risk. There will be a period of time — several hours up to a couple of days — when a fix isn’t available via the built-in updater.

All in all, relying on built-in updaters is a poor attempt at keeping your PC up-to-date. It’s time for a better approach.

The update utilities reviewed here will routinely scan your system for available updates, give you an at-a-glance view of all upcoming updates, and get you quickly to the downloads. But best of all, they’ll give you the ability to turn off all of the currently running individual update tools and just use one solution for all.

Source: http://www.itworld.com/software/347798/6-software-and-driver-update-utilities-compared

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Why Google needs Facebook for Android to win

Why Google needs Facebook for Android to win

Back when Android’s Gingerbread version was still fresh, Facebook engineers started seeing a problem — a big one, one that stood to kill the app on Facebook users’ Android phones.

Facebook had too many method records, the technical bits that let a service communicate with the app on your phone — in excess of 3 million method records, in fact. And 3 million was, in that version of Android, the magic number, the limit at which each individual app was capped.

It was Facebook’s big, mobile, “Oh, shit” moment. Then, over the course of two days, said Facebook engineering lead Mike Shaver, “We went from DEFCON 1 — klaxons and sirens, people can no longer use Facebook on Android — to the ability to extend the platform.”

In a chat at Facebook’s headquarters today, Shaver (pictured above) told a small group of reporters about how Facebook mobile engineers were able to pop the hood on Android — and never has anyone been more grateful for the open-source nature of that operating system — and find out exactly what and where the issue was. They quickly created a patch, moved a pointer in Dalvik, the Android version of Java’s runtime, and created more space for an app to store method records.

“We were able to send the patch over to Google to get their opinion on it,” said Shaver. “The looked at it for a day or two, and they said it would work for now, if not for the future.”

The teams did a bit of testing and rolled the patch out, saving the day for Facebook on Android.

Android has come a long way from its scrappy, crashy, buggy, early-adopter roots. The platform’s design and experience are, from a user perspective, at least equal to (and by some subjective measurements, far superior to) the more established iOS experience.

But without the technical capability to support massive third-party applications with global audiences in the billions, Android will not stand. That’s why Google needs Facebook. The social company is a huge competitor to Google in many other ways, but when it comes to Android, Facebook is the only app that can put the proof in the pudding and stress-test a mobile operating system for a worldwide audience.

“We’re a very significant app to them, and they’re a very significant platform to us,” said Shaver.

When it comes to building Android out for larger apps with more market share, he said, “These tools don’t exist because no one else has hit these limits. … All the [other] tools were designed for smaller applications.”

But, he continued, “Someone else will hit this limit. … We have all the tools. We know how to be this company. Everybody about Facebook is thinking about mobile, and everybody at Facebook is thinking about Android.”

When it comes to optimizations like these — tiny tweaks to a mobile OS runtime — Shaver rightly pointed out that the end user will never be able to see or feel any of this stuff. All they will know is that download times, app responsiveness, and features all stay bloat-free and quick. “The key is with these workarounds and limitations, it has to be transparent to the user,” he said.

But don’t hold your breath for Facebook to become a major contributor to the operating system in the future.

“What we have right now is an Android operating system with hundreds of millions of users that can have a great social experience,” said Shaver. “That’s the part we’re focused on.” As far as future patches or contributions to the Android operating system, Shaver said, “We’ll get that stuff out as it’s appropriate. … If that’s the thing we want to do, we’ll do it.”

Since last year, Facebook has been training engineers across all the company to understand and work with mobile technologies, with the end goal of company-wide “mobile empathy.” Hundreds have been given mobile training since last year, Shaver said 2013 is about putting that empathy and understanding to work.

Currently, Facebook is on an accelerated release cycle for all its mobile applications. The company updates its Android app every month on the second or third Thursday of the month.

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/04/google-facebook-android/

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Internet Explorer 10 Comes to Windows 7

IE10 1990s Video Ad

Windows 7 was a poor stepchild for a while when it came to Microsoft’s latest Web browser, Internet Explorer 10. The new browser was available with Windows 8 at that new operating system’s launch, and later became available as an optional preview update for users of IE9 under Windows 7. That is no longer the case, with today’s official launch of IE10 for Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 10 brings far greater support for HTML5 Web standards, faster performance, and leading privacy protection for Web surfers.

Of course it’s understandable that Microsoft’s browser team would be focused on the company’s newest OS, but it wasn’t likely they’d keep the Windows 7 user base of more than 700 million waiting for too long. On Friday, PCMag spoke with Microsoft’s Ryan Gavin, general manager for Windows Internet Explorer, and Rob Mauceri, group program manager, for some insight into the strategy behind the IE10 launch. Mauceri noted that Windows 7 is still a modern OS, no doubt referring to its support for DirectX 11, which is required for the browser’s graphics hardware acceleration speed-ups.

Speaking of speed, Gavin told me that "the performance improvement from IE9 to IE10 is substantial, in fact, IE10 is about 20 percent faster for real world sites than its predecessor." He had already noted that in real-world Web speed studies, IE9 was already the leader (for more, see By the Numbers: the Fastest Browser). "We feel really great about that progress, and our leadership in hardware acceleration is really only accelerating."

In HTML5 support the percentage improvement from IE9 to IE10 is even more impressive: the newer browser adds 60 percent more HTML5 capabilities. "Developers can take advantage of these capabilities and build increasingly rich websites," said Gavin, "but just as importantly, [there's a] confidence level that they have knowing that they can write it once and it’s really going to work across all modern browsers."

Indeed, according to the (not quite authoritative but nevertheless informative) HTML5Test.com site, out of a possible 500, IE10′s score jumps to 320 from IE9′ 138, which was still a far better showing than IE8′s 42. For comparison, Maxthon leads this test with 464 points, followed by Chrome’s 448, Opera with 419, and Firefox with 393.

The final point Gavin wanted to make concerned privacy: Along with Maxthon, IE10 is the only browser to have Do Not Track enabled by default (much to the chagrin of the Web advertising industry). Microsoft’s browser will also include a very powerful privacy feature introduced in IE9—Tracking Protection. This feature blocks interaction with sites on tracking protection lists to which users can subscribe. In a similar move, it recently came to light that Firefox, starting with version 22, would block third-party tracking cookies by default. The Internet Explorer and Firefox moves are based on expressed user desire, while Google has too much self-interest as the largest purveyor of Web ads to include similar features in Chrome.

One thing IE9 users who are upgrading to version 10 won’t notice is a new interface: they will be greeted by the same, trim browser interface, with only the smallest of tweaks. Mauceri told us that the browser now includes integrated spell-checking and auto-correct. You can also close multiple tabs in rapid succession by repeatedly clicking the mouse on each tab’s X.

To promote the browser, Microsoft will launch a new ad campaign called "Explore Touch," which will use the talents of composer/singer Blake Lewis. As the title suggests, the commercials will highlight touch capabilities in IE10 when used with a touch tablet or touch-capable monitor. A new demo site, www.exploretouch.ie, is also being launched to demonstrate touch input, with interactive versions of the commerical’s music. IE10 was one of the first browsers to support HTML5 Touch Events. A behind-the-scenes video shows how the commercial was made in Lewis’s words.

Though IE has lost ground in recent years to upstarts like Firefox and Chrome, browser watchers may be surprised to learn that from Dec. 2012 to Jan. 2013, IE’s piece of the usage pie has actually risen while Chrome’s has slipped some, according to Web-monitoring site NetMarketShare. According to the site, Internet Explorer sat at 55.14 percent at the end of January, with Firefox at 19.94 percent, Chrome at 17.48 percent, and Safari at 5.24 percent.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415871,00.asp

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MobileFirst: IBM asking companies to design mobile applications first, rest later

ING Vysya Bank BSE 0.83 %, with around 500 branches and an additional 500 ATMs, is too small to compete with the banking titans directly. So it does what small companies do in such situations: use tact and finesse to lure and retain customers.

The bank was evaluating technology options to use mobility as a strategic edge, when it was attracted to an Israeli company, Worklight. This startup, set up in 2006, had a useful piece of technology.

It enabled companies to create, in one seamless process, an application that could work in any device: a laptop, iPad,iPhone, Android phone… Its capabilities were impressive, but there was one problem.

Worklight did not operate in India. This was in early 2012. Soon after, ING VysyaBSE 0.83 % heard an interesting piece of news: IBM was acquiring Worklight.

IBM, which had worked hard to build formidable products and services in cloud and analytics, had suddenly found itself inadequate in mobility, a rapidly-emerging area that was becoming a conduit to these two businesses.

With IBM having a substantial presence in India, ING signed up with Worklight quickly. IBM went on to acquire more companies, totaling 10 in the mobility space in four years, and launched a brand called MobileFirst on Thursday last week.

"We are planning to double investments in mobility this year," says Ed Brill, director of IBM Mobile Enterprise Marketing. MobileFirst, as the name implies, asks companies to turn their current development philosophy on its head.

MobileFirst: IBM asking companies to design mobile applications first, rest later

Instead of making mobile applications an extension of their desktop software, IBM is asking companies to design mobile applications first and then think about the rest later.

For them to do this well, IBM has spread a splendid set of tools: a mobile development platform, a security platform, a mobile device management product, mobile analytics, an ecosystem which includes service-provider A&T (only in the US) and universities, and a plethora of services around of them.

Although not mentioned explicitly, it would include a cloud service also, often serving as a critical part of mobile services. Mobility is now considered as one of the mega trends affecting the IT industry, on par with three trends that defined and directed it earlier: Mainframe, client-server and Internet.

Many chief information officers and analysts now bundle mobility with other recent developments like social, cloud and analytics. These four trends are together called SMAC, a term that describes the close association between social, mobile, analytics and cloud.

All four areas are bustling with startup innovation. Big IT companies are watching them closely. Mobile applications have been growing slowly over the last decade, but mobile commerce had not, till recently.

Phones were not good enough then. The networks were slow. Enterprises had legacy applications that were not easy to extend to a mobile. So you could, in theory, buy stuff on the mobile or do other financial transactions, but customers were often put away by the poor experience.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/mobilefirst-ibm-asking-companies-to-design-mobile-applications-first-rest-later/articleshow/18666952.cms

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IBM Dives Head First Into Mobile

IBM moves into mobile

IBM last week unveiled an expansive new strategy to deliver mobile business solutions under MobileFirst, its new brand of software and services for delivering apps on smartphones and tablets. With MobileFirst, IBM seeks to bring together all of the elements required by an enterprise to successfully roll-out mobile solutions, including development, deployment, device management, and security tools. And, IBM being IBM, it also includes a healthy dose of professional services, but no apparent IBM i hooks at this time.

MobileFirst is an umbrella brand that brings together many pieces of software that already existed in IBM’s portfolio, but it introduces some new software as well. There are literally dozens of products parked under the new MobileFirst banner, including products from familiar IBM brands like WebSphere, Rational, Domino, Tivoli, and Cognos. Recent IBM acquisitions, like Q1 Labs (security), Emptoris (expense and expenditure management), and Tealeaf (customer experience management) also play a part.

IBM breaks MobileFirst products down into four main categories, including MobileFirst Platform, MobileFirst Security, MobileFirst Management, and MobileFirst Analytics. Within these four, there are no less than 28 individually named products and services sitting under Big Blue’s new mobile umbrella. Simplicity has never been IBM’s strong suit, and apparently it’s not going to start now.

The key product under the new MobileFirst Platform is Mobile Foundation, a pre-existing suite that previously combined three tools but now appears to sport only two: Worklight, an HTML 5 mobile application development and runtime environment that includes a Java-based server component and an Eclipse-based studio; and WebSphere Cast Iron, an integration framework for connecting on-premise and cloud applications and systems.

Worklight, you will remember, is on the short list of IBM apps that several prominent IBM i experts, including Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, the Power Systems champion and CIO of the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, want running and supported on IBM i. The work done by Reynolds-Lair and another Power Systems champion, Steve Pitcher, were instrumental in getting other new IBM offerings supported on the platform, including Notes Traveler and IBM Connections, both of which IBM has committed to supporting on IBM i.

And lo! What do we have here but an IBM announcement letter on February 19 for Worklight version 5.0.6. Could it, would it, include a statement of direction in support of IBM i? As diligent readers scroll down, they read:

"IBM intends to provide additional platform support for the IBM Worklight product offerings in response to customer feedback and market demand…IBM anticipates extending support to IBM System z hardware and the IBM z/OS operating system in the future." Actually, IBM committed to supporting z/OS with Worklight back in September, so this isn’t news. What is disheartening is that Worklight apps can be served up from z/OS, Windows, AIX, Solaris, Linux, and Mac OS–every "major" business OS but IBM i (and HP-UX).

Worklight isn’t the only component of MobileFirst Foundation. IBM CLM [collaborative lifecycle management] suite, which in turn is composed of Rational Requirements Composer, Team Concert, and Quality Manager, is also a part of MobileFirst Foundation. Others include Rational Test Workbench; Web Experience Solutions; Lotus Domino Designer; and WebSphere MQ.

MobileFirst Management is based largely on IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices, which previously was called just Endpoint Manager when it was part of the Mobile Foundation. Endpoint Manager is a Windows/SQL Server-based app that enables businesses to adopt "bring your own device" (BYOD) strategies, and supports all popular mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, and Symbian. MobileFirst Management also includes Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus, WebSphere Datapower, and Emptoris Rivermine Telecom Expense Management.

MobileFirst Security includes a new release of Security AppScan that has been gussied up to spot potential vulnerabilities in iOS apps; it previously supported Android. The Security Access Manager for Cloud and Mobile component delivers single sign on (SSO) capability for mobile apps–definitively a nice thing to have in enterprise environments. Integration with the security information and event management (SIEM) product QRadar is also part of MobileFirst Security, turning tablets and smartphones into listening posts to detect the activities of hackers and cybercriminals, while Mobile Connect establishes a virtual private network (VPN) connection between a mobile device and a server.

On the analytics front, IBM has crammed several apps into MobileFirst Analytics boat, including: Tealeaf CX Mobile, for detecting potential problems in the mobile user’s experience; Mobile Commerce, for mobile e-commerce; and Cognos Mobile, for accessing Cognos reports, dashboards, and metrics from mobile devices.

Bringing all these tools to bear on customers’ mobile strategies may be difficult, but never fear: IBM Global Services is here! MobileFirst has a wide array of services components, including: mobile application development; integration with back-office systems; infrastructure and planning; network integration; running mobile apps from the cloud; and embedding unified communications and collaboration (UCC) capabilities into mobile apps.

IBM also unveiled a new partnership with AT&T to integrate Worklight apps with AT&T’s cloud APIs. There’s also a new program called "Ready for IBM MobileFirst" to get ISVs going with the new brand, and new initiatives with colleges, too. IBM financing also got into the MobileFirst act.

It is almost as if every department in IBM gets to play a part in MobileFirst, which is undoubtedly what led IBM to call MobileFirst the first "true end-to-end mobile solution" that businesses can use to "transform their entire business model." Considering that most of the tools already existed in IBM’s portfolio, that claim is a stretch. (It is even more of a stretch unless IBM has done the hard work to integrate the tools, not only from a functional aspect, but from a licensing aspect, too). Every organization will have specific needs as it relates to mobile, so there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution, despite whatever messaging IBM’s marketing committees agree on.

With so many components in MobileFirst, it is likely that any given organization will find something that addresses at least some their mobile needs. And customers can even look outside of the MobileFirst family, to tools such as Rational Application Developer and Rational Business Developer, which gained Dojo X Mobile support in 2011, but which missed the first departure of the MobileFirst train.

It is clear that MobileFirst represents the product branding that IBM is using for its smartphone and tablet computing solutions, and it will undoubtedly evolve in the future. Now all that IBM needs to do is support IBM i with Worklight–the foundational element of MobileFirst–and it will have piqued the attention of 150,000 of its best customers.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh022513-story05.html

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